Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, defended the group’s decision to meddle in Republican primaries to boost pro-Trump candidates.
Maloney chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent $425,000 on an ad boosting Trump-endorsed John Gibbs in his primary challenge against Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the former president. The DCCC was criticized on both sides of the aisle over the move after Gibbs, an election denier, won his primary, especially given that Democrats have called former President Donald Trump and his election claims a “threat to democracy.”
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Maloney rejected the criticism when asked on NBC’s Meet the Press if his organization was putting “party over country” by boosting radical GOP candidates.
“Absolutely not did we put party over country,” Maloney told moderator Chuck Todd. “The moral imperative right now, Mr. Todd, is to keep the dangerous MAGA Republicans who voted to overturn our election out of power.”
Todd then pressed Maloney again about Meijer, who voted to certify the 2020 election and supported impeachment. Meijer represents a swing district, where Maloney repeatedly argued a candidate like Gibbs will be far less likely to win. As a result, he claimed, boosting the radical candidate was not contributing to the danger Democrats had pledged to fight against.
“Again, this danger didn’t start with Mr. Gibbs. By every measure, he’s the weaker candidate. Don’t take my word for it: The Cook Political Report says it’s far more likely the Democrats are going to win that seat now. That’s doing our job,” the DCCC chairman said. “And let’s remember, Peter Meijer was an anti-choice extremist who also was going to vote to have Jim Jordan run the Judiciary Committee, give you two years of nonsense investigating Hunter Biden.”
Asked about the public’s perception of what his organization had done by boosting Gibbs and others like him, Maloney acknowledged that questionable tactics were being used, but he chalked it up to politics.
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“Chuck, my job is to win elections for the Democrats, and I take that seriously because the moral imperative is keeping the gavel out of the hands of Kevin McCarthy, who would have overturned the results of the election,” he said. “Again, this danger didn’t start with Mr. Gibbs. I understand that there are difficult moral questions, philosophical questions about tactics. That’s always true in politics. You better believe it. But here’s the deal: We are more likely to win that seat.”
He added: “We believe that by keeping those dangerous people out of power, we address the larger moral imperative, and that’s our job.”
